According to petitions the automaker sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Aston Martin would have revealed the next-gen DB9 and Vantage this month (and very likely at Pebble) were there not years of losses and “substantial economic hardship.” In June, we first heard that the next DB9 would debut in 2016 followed by a new Vantage, but we had no clue those launch dates were actually delayed by at least two years. Now, in company filings to NHTSA we found dated from November, we have clear details: A brand-new DB9 will bow no later than September 2016 with a fresh Vantage joining it by September 2017. The last production runs for both current models are scheduled to end on August 31 of those respective years, and like any automaker, Aston can’t afford a gap between models.

The real issue here—and not because NHTSA appreciates hand-built British luxury cars like we do—is head-curtain airbags. The DB9 and the Vantage won’t have them until their replacements arrive, which could put Aston in the same chokehold that Lotus faced when the feds banned the Elise and Exige in 2011 for lack of passenger-sensing airbags. Aston claims it can’t afford to install the safety equipment required to pass stricter federal side-impact tests—which go into effect for all new cars built starting September 1, 2014—because the money is “just not available.” Without a temporary waiver from NHTSA, Aston would be forced to drop the DB9 and Vantage coupes from its U.S. lineup as early as next month. Convertibles have another year to comply, and at that point, Aston would have to kill the DB9 Volante and all Vantage roadster variants before the new models debut. The Vanquish and the Rapide already comply.

James Walker, who owns an Aston store in Washington, D.C., and represents all 35 U.S. dealers, filed a letter earlier this month to support the company’s plea. He says without these two cars, Aston Martin would lose a quarter of its U.S. sales and “a substantial number” of its 230 dealership employees. Those dealers, according to Walker, are “barely profitable” as it is and would all “be in the red” once the convertibles disappear.

“The financial viability of Aston Martin dealers is very much in question with the loss of volume represented by the petition,” Walker wrote. “If dealers make the decision to shutter the franchise, a very likely outcome, the impact on employment is significant.”

In its airbag-waiver petition, Aston Martin lists all of the parts it doesn’t want to change.

The new federal side-impact tests, parts of which simulate a car smashing into a pole, require head-curtain airbags and body structural reinforcements. They aren’t really new. NHTSA introduced the proposal in 2007—months after Kuwaiti investors bought Aston from Ford—and enacted the final rule in 2010, at which time it granted a four-year buildup period for all automakers to comply across their lineups. Small-volume automakers such as Aston Martin, which sold only 4200 cars worldwide last year, have been exempt from the phase-in but must follow the rules starting next month. Somehow, Aston missed the memo and waited until July 2013 to file its initial waiver request. With less than two weeks to go, the agency, without surprise, hasn’t issued a response.

Because Aston originally planned to discontinue the current DB9 and Vantage before September, it never invested in side-impact compliance for those cars. Aston says adding airbags, modifying the aluminum frame, and conducting certified crash tests for the 670 DB9 and Vantage models it expects to import through 2017 would cost $30 million.

While that might be chump change to Lamborghini, Aston is the only exotic automaker without a rich corporate overlord to swallow such costs, and as such, Gaydon’s finances remain shaky. Amid a recession and shuffling owners, Aston’s global sales declined by 48 percent between 2007 and 2012 and have yet to recover. The company lost £39 million (about $65 million) in the 2010–2012 period and skated through 2013 with just $2.5 million in operating profit. Only this year has the independent British automaker—with financing from an Italian investment group that joined ranks in December 2012—secured the biggest budget in its 101-year history ($838 million for new models through 2017) and an engine contract with Mercedes-AMG. When the next DB9 and Vantage finally arrive, they’ll have moved on from Aston’s aging VH platform and Ford-era parts bin.

But none of that will absolve Aston from its current bind with U.S. regulators. Although NHTSA has waived earlier airbag requirements for other exotic automakers such as Mosler, Koenigsegg, and Ferrari, it’s been considerably less graceful with airbag issues since it denied Lotus and Pagani from similar waivers in 2011. There’s also no guarantee that Aston, which sells about 800 cars here each year, would get special treatment when its competitors (and indeed, some of its own cars) are towing the line. To the Vantage and DB9 fans, place your orders now—or else you might have to settle for a Jaguar F-type R in the meantime.